


Never again

by thesadchicken



Series: The Aftermath of Genesis [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, But with a happy ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, because Genesis really hurt them both a lot, but things gets better!, old married spirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21745099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesadchicken/pseuds/thesadchicken
Summary: Sometimes the silence threatens to swallow them. Sometimes Spock needs to say things, and Jim needs to hear them.After the Genesis crisis, Jim and Spock deal with the hurt that losing each other has left behind.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Series: The Aftermath of Genesis [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567234
Comments: 7
Kudos: 69





	Never again

**Author's Note:**

> This could be post-The Voyage Home or post-The Final Frontier.

It was raining over the bay. Droplets struck the windows and slid down the glass. Spock’s ears picked up the pitter-patter, the gentle song of the city beyond, and inside, the sounds of home. His tea, discarded on the table, was now cold. From the kitchen came the smell of Vulcan spices. Jim was making dinner.

Spock put down his PADD and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he noticed the sky was almost white, and through the haze of clouds and rain the streets seemed blurred. A heavy sigh from the kitchen – it sounded impossibly loud in the silence. Spock had been listening to the silence, to how it sometimes threatened to swallow them.

Jim never complained, but Spock could sense his frustration through their bond; he could see it in the tired smiles, the small nods. He could read the question in his husband’s eyes, and the quiet longing. It reminded Spock of how it had been in the beginning, all the yearning and the aching, the feelings flowing between them, and how he had refused to throw himself into that particular river for too long. _Never again_ , he’d told himself, and yet even now as he pushed himself off the couch and walked into the kitchen, he felt the hurt thrumming through the bond.

Jim was standing near the kitchen counter, facing the wall. Spock stopped and watched him at work; watched how those beloved hands held the knife, cutting the vegetables into uneven shapes. Suddenly, Spock was overcome by an emotion he could not tame. He hurried to his husband’s side and slid two comforting arms around his waist, letting his chin fall onto Jim’s shoulder and kissing his cheek tenderly.

“Mm,” Jim hummed, slowly setting the knife down, “Hello, you.”

Spock pressed his lips against Jim’s neck, breathing him in. “May I be of assistance?”

“No, it’s alright, I’m almost done here,” Jim said, gathering the vegetables into a bowl, “Go finish your work.”

There was weariness in Jim’s tone, but Spock knew through the bond that it was not directed at him. It was a general state of tiredness, and a numbing fear – fear that things would revert to the way they were before. In Jim’s mind, this fear fed on a memory, a single, terrifying memory, and Spock latched onto it. He needed to _know_.

“ _Ashayam_ ,” Spock whispered, pulling Jim closer.

Another heavy sigh. Jim abandoned his cooking and turned in Spock’s arms. Face to face, they stared into each other’s eyes. It had stopped raining outside, and everything was quiet – that silence, that dreaded silence. Was it illogical to feel the heaviness of one’s own heart?

But then Jim reached for Spock’s hand and held it up between them. Human fingers curled around a delicate Vulcan wrist. A gentle command. Spock understood.

With infinite tenderness, he pressed his fingertips against his bondmate’s psi points. Jim’s mental walls fell in a single motion. _Yes, you can look_.

Spock knew Jim’s mind well. The meld was easy, familiar after all these years. He reached for the memory directly; the one threaded with dread and relief and hope and suffering. It was red. Burning; on fire. Like the sky; like their hearts. It was a memory of Spock’s face, closed and confused. No recognition in his dark eyes. _My father says that you have been my friend. Your name… is…_

And then more fire, swallowing the world, and more coldness, _good morning Admiral_ , the flames licking body and soul, pain in the chest, pain beyond the body, _my name is Jim, you used to call me Jim, don’t you remember?_ Oh and how waking up hurt and going back to sleep hurt too. How the world kept ending every time they looked at each other. _Don’t you remember?_

The memory faded, and Spock slowly ended the mind meld. His fingers traced Jim’s jawline, slid down his neck, over his chest, and rested on his heart. He looked up, meeting his husband’s eyes once more.

“Jim…”

So this was the fear that gripped him whenever Spock was busy for too long. It wasn’t just the time spent apart; it wasn’t the plans that they had to rearrange. It was the deep dark fear of losing him again, of Spock slipping back into the coldness of non-emotion. Of Spock forgetting that he loved Jim.

“I could never –” Spock started, but then he shook his head. Such things he so rarely expressed through words. He was not sure he could do it right, but he had to try. He held Jim’s hand in his. “It is all that I am. If I forget it, I forget myself.”

Jim’s eyes glowed almost green in this light. His lips parted, but he said nothing. Hurt thrummed again through the bond, and fear. Fear, still, coiling around their minds like a serpent.

“There is nothing to fear, _t'hy'la_ ” Spock’s voice might have sounded calm to anyone else, but to Jim he knew it would ring with emotion: a hint of worry, but mostly fervour – for it was his deepest truth spilling out of his lips. “As long as I live, I am yours.”

The sun now shone weakly through the windows. Jim brought Spock’s hand to his mouth and kissed his palm. “I can’t lose you again,” he whispered.

“Never again,” Spock whispered back. And then, slipping his fingers into Jim’s graying hair, “I love you.”

Like the sky, Jim’s face brightened, the clouds parting to reveal a smile. “I love you too.”


End file.
